Emojipedia has recently published its findings regarding the usage of emojis across tweets in 2020, highlighting the ones most used, and some other trends observed throughout the year.
Emojis, the image-based successors to emoticons, have to the delight, disdain, and indifference of users across the board, become an integral part of the current world's language. Most of this stems from technology's rapid development, leading us to use more convenient sources of conversation (i.e. texting). Then again, emojis have also began to dominate meme culture (albeit with satirical undertones). Sony Animations even made an entire movie, imaginatively titled The Emoji Movie.
This author urges all of their readers to never watch it. To think the makers of the Oscar-winning Into the Spider-verse were behind this is confounding.
Introductory rambling out of the way, let's get to the findings! The top 10 list has more or less been carried over from 2019, with the only significant change being that the Red Heart overtook the ROFL meme's number 4 slot. Which this author likes to believe is due to people sending out caring messages throughout the pandemic. Optimism is sorely lacking these days, and finding bright spots in unusual places might prove to be healthy.
The top emoji, carried over from last year, is the Laughing Face With Tears of Joy (as labelled by the Emojipedia). However, the page does further explain that the emoji is seeing an constant decline, and may be surrendering its throne to the Loudly Crying Face. The latter almost took over the number one spot in November, as it is.
While the afore-mentioned top 10 discussed most used emojis, there's another top 10 up to bat. Specifically, which icons have seen the most amount of growth over 2020. Let's discuss some notable entries. Yawning Face takes the number 1 slot, despite only recently being introduced in 2019. It saw a Herculean leap in popularity, with a 992,799.82% increase since the last year. Truly, people are completely tired of current times.
The Microbe also made it to the list, with a growth of 800% between 2019 and 2020 (no reason to dwell over "why"). Its peak was measured to be in March of this year, precisely the time when the COVID-19 pandemic was announced to the world. And while this may not hold much significance, the Otter made it to number 3 on the growth list! The Emojipedia blog has not delved into why such a development has occurred, but it seems indicative of people looking towards more wholesome and cutesy conversations throughout the general pandemonium.
The Shopping Card icon, number 4 on the list, saw an interesting pattern of growth. With halting yet substantial growth from January to June, its peak at just over 10/1000 tweets, the emoji's usage plummeted in July to almost nonexistence, and has failed to make any growth since. A solid beginning, with a fizzling end.
An entry that didn't make the growth list, yet still saw enough usage to deserve a mention, is the Face with Medical Mask. It saw an 87.2% increase (for obvious reasons), and almost became a staple of COVID-related conversations on Twitter. Apple even changed the emoji's design on their devices to depict a happier-looking individual, in an attempt to encourage the use of masks.
Finally, a look at the unpopular crowd for this year. This list is dedicated to the emojis that saw steep declines over the 2019-2020 timeframe. Some interesting entries that made it on this list are the Airplane, the Soccer Ball, the Baseball, and the Basketball. Why mention them in conjunction? Well, because these are all activities and vocations that were banned due to the pandemic, and it shows. All of the sports emojis fell into a sharp decline during February and March (except for baseball which, laughably, started off lower than any of the other two ever got). Chocolate made number 1 on the list, which doesn’t really make room for conversation. The confectionery hardly seemed relevant throughout 2020.
Read next: The steady growth of unreliable news sites is an addition to the list of terrible things that happened in 2020
Emojis, the image-based successors to emoticons, have to the delight, disdain, and indifference of users across the board, become an integral part of the current world's language. Most of this stems from technology's rapid development, leading us to use more convenient sources of conversation (i.e. texting). Then again, emojis have also began to dominate meme culture (albeit with satirical undertones). Sony Animations even made an entire movie, imaginatively titled The Emoji Movie.
This author urges all of their readers to never watch it. To think the makers of the Oscar-winning Into the Spider-verse were behind this is confounding.
Introductory rambling out of the way, let's get to the findings! The top 10 list has more or less been carried over from 2019, with the only significant change being that the Red Heart overtook the ROFL meme's number 4 slot. Which this author likes to believe is due to people sending out caring messages throughout the pandemic. Optimism is sorely lacking these days, and finding bright spots in unusual places might prove to be healthy.
The top emoji, carried over from last year, is the Laughing Face With Tears of Joy (as labelled by the Emojipedia). However, the page does further explain that the emoji is seeing an constant decline, and may be surrendering its throne to the Loudly Crying Face. The latter almost took over the number one spot in November, as it is.
While the afore-mentioned top 10 discussed most used emojis, there's another top 10 up to bat. Specifically, which icons have seen the most amount of growth over 2020. Let's discuss some notable entries. Yawning Face takes the number 1 slot, despite only recently being introduced in 2019. It saw a Herculean leap in popularity, with a 992,799.82% increase since the last year. Truly, people are completely tired of current times.
The Microbe also made it to the list, with a growth of 800% between 2019 and 2020 (no reason to dwell over "why"). Its peak was measured to be in March of this year, precisely the time when the COVID-19 pandemic was announced to the world. And while this may not hold much significance, the Otter made it to number 3 on the growth list! The Emojipedia blog has not delved into why such a development has occurred, but it seems indicative of people looking towards more wholesome and cutesy conversations throughout the general pandemonium.
The Shopping Card icon, number 4 on the list, saw an interesting pattern of growth. With halting yet substantial growth from January to June, its peak at just over 10/1000 tweets, the emoji's usage plummeted in July to almost nonexistence, and has failed to make any growth since. A solid beginning, with a fizzling end.
An entry that didn't make the growth list, yet still saw enough usage to deserve a mention, is the Face with Medical Mask. It saw an 87.2% increase (for obvious reasons), and almost became a staple of COVID-related conversations on Twitter. Apple even changed the emoji's design on their devices to depict a happier-looking individual, in an attempt to encourage the use of masks.
Finally, a look at the unpopular crowd for this year. This list is dedicated to the emojis that saw steep declines over the 2019-2020 timeframe. Some interesting entries that made it on this list are the Airplane, the Soccer Ball, the Baseball, and the Basketball. Why mention them in conjunction? Well, because these are all activities and vocations that were banned due to the pandemic, and it shows. All of the sports emojis fell into a sharp decline during February and March (except for baseball which, laughably, started off lower than any of the other two ever got). Chocolate made number 1 on the list, which doesn’t really make room for conversation. The confectionery hardly seemed relevant throughout 2020.
Read next: The steady growth of unreliable news sites is an addition to the list of terrible things that happened in 2020
